Public comments on proposed Carlsbad power plant

CARLSBAD  The five-year-long battle over a proposed power plant continued Monday night as several Carlsbad residents and representatives from a New Jersey-based energy company made their respective cases in front of state energy commissioners.

Residents lined up at the Hilton Garden Inn in Carlsbad to comment on NRG Energy, Inc.’s proposed 558-megawatt power plant that would sit on the city’s coastline if approved by the California Energy Commission, which has the ultimate say in whether the plant is built.

Many residents, including Mayor Matt Hall, listed concerns similar to the ones they mentioned during the last public hearing earlier this year, including safety and pollution worries, harm to tourism and the inability to use the valuable coastal property for parks or other open space.

“These facilities can be located anywhere in the county,” Hall said of the proposed air-cooled facility. “This property should not be condemned to another 50 years of industrial use.”

Other residents, including Jerry Carter, the manager of the existing Encina Power Station on the Carlsbad coast, took a different stance. Carter told commissioners he supports the NRG proposal and is ready to welcome the next chapter in the 50-plus-year history of Encina.

Carlsbad city officials have fought the power plant proposal since 2007, when NRG first submitted plans for a plant that would generate enough energy to power more than 360,000 homes.

Plans also indicate that the company would replace the existing Encina station.

The 23-acre site on which NRG hopes to build its new energy station is just east of the Encina station, the mammoth power plant that many Carlsbad residents have come to regard as more of an eyesore than a landmark with its 400-foot-tall smokestack.

NRG Energy has said in past hearings that once the new power plant is operational, the existing plant would be retired and ultimately torn down.

The company recently pulled back on the position after city officials continued to openly criticize the plant proposal, which NRG said went against the deal they made with the company to ensure that the existing plant would be razed.

Energy commissioners have asked NRG to submit more documentation about the proposed plant in mid-January.